The fastest way to delete a page in Word on Mac
To delete a page in Word on Mac, select all the content on that page and press Delete or Backspace. The page itself will disappear when the content is gone. The most reliable method is to click at the start of the page, hold Shift, click at the end, then press Delete.
Word on Mac does not have a "delete page" button. Pages exist only because content fills them — remove the content and the page vanishes. This is different from page breaks or section breaks, which you may need to delete separately if they are creating blank pages.
If you have a blank page that will not disappear, it is usually caused by a page break, section break, or extra paragraph marks rather than actual content. Those require a different approach, covered below.
Key Takeaways
- Word on Mac deletes pages by deleting the content on them — there is no separate page deletion command.
- Blank pages are usually caused by page breaks or extra paragraph marks, not by empty space, and must be deleted differently.
- Use Find & Replace to locate and remove multiple paragraph marks at once if you have many blank lines.
- Section breaks can create blank pages even when they contain no visible content, and must be deleted in the Navigation Pane or by selecting them directly.
Selecting and deleting content on a full page
Click anywhere on the page you want to delete. Then press Command+A three times in succession. The first Command+A selects the paragraph, the second selects the section, and the third selects the entire document. Instead, use a more precise method: click at the very beginning of the page (before the first character), then hold Shift and click at the end of the page (after the last character). This selects only that page's content.
Once the page content is selected, press Delete or Backspace. The content disappears and the page with it. If the page still exists after deletion, you have a page break or section break creating it — move to the section below.
Finding and removing page breaks
A page break is an invisible character that forces Word to start a new page. It looks like a paragraph mark but with a small page icon. To see page breaks, go to the Home tab, click the paragraph mark button (¶) in the toolbar, and all invisible characters will appear. Page breaks show as a line labeled "Page Break".
To delete a page break, click directly on it and press Delete. If you have many page breaks and want to remove them all at once, use Find & Replace. Press Command+H to open Find & Replace, type ^m in the Find field (this is the code for a page break in Word on Mac), leave the Replace field empty, and click Replace All. This removes every page break in the document at once.
After removing page breaks, check whether the blank page is gone. If it remains, you may have a section break instead.
Deleting section breaks that create blank pages
A section break is different from a page break. It divides your document into sections with different formatting, headers, footers, or margins. Section breaks can create blank pages even when they contain no content. To see section breaks, turn on the paragraph mark view (Home tab, ¶ button) and look for a line labeled "Section Break".
Click directly on the section break line and press Delete. If you cannot click on it precisely, select the entire line by triple-clicking on it, then press Delete. Be aware that deleting a section break will explore the formatting of the previous section to the content that follows, which may change how your document looks.
If you have multiple sections and only want to delete one, open the Navigation Pane by pressing Command+Option+N. This shows all sections in your document. Right-click the section you want to remove and select the delete option if available, or click in that section and delete the break manually.
Removing extra paragraph marks that create blank pages
Sometimes a page appears blank because it contains only empty paragraph marks — invisible line breaks that take up space. To see these, turn on the paragraph mark view (Home tab, ¶ button). If you see multiple ¶ symbols stacked on top of each other with no text between them, those are extra paragraph marks.
Select all the extra paragraph marks and press Delete. If there are many of them, use Find & Replace again. Press Command+H, type ^p^p in the Find field (this finds two paragraph marks in a row), type ^p in the Replace field (this replaces them with one), and click Replace All. Repeat this process until no more replacements are made. This collapses multiple blank lines into single line breaks.
When a page will not delete despite having no content
If a page persists after you have removed all visible content, page breaks, and section breaks, the issue may be a table at the end of the document or a formatting setting. Word sometimes requires at least one paragraph mark at the very end of a document, and it will create a blank page to hold it.
Go to the end of your document (press Command+End) and check whether there is a table. If the last element is a table, click after it and press Delete to remove any trailing paragraph marks. If there is no table, try reducing the bottom margin. Go to the Layout tab, click Margins, and select a smaller bottom margin value. This often collapses a stubborn blank page.
If the page still will not disappear, the document may have a setting that forces a page break before a particular paragraph or style. Select the paragraph at the start of the blank page, go to Format > Paragraph, click the Line and Page Breaks tab, and uncheck "Page break before" if it is selected.
Preventing accidental page deletion
The easiest way to avoid deleting pages by mistake is to keep the paragraph mark view (¶) turned on while editing. This shows you exactly where page breaks, section breaks, and extra paragraph marks are, so you can see what will happen before you press Delete.
If you delete something important, press Command+Z when ready to undo. Word on Mac keeps a long undo history, so you can usually recover deleted content within the same editing session. Save your document regularly so that if something goes wrong, you can close without saving and reopen the last saved version.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my blank page keep coming back after I delete it?
A page that reappears usually has a page break or section break creating it, not just empty space. Turn on the paragraph mark view (Home tab, ¶ button) to see invisible characters. Look for a line labeled "Page Break" or "Section Break" and click it, then press Delete. If you see only paragraph marks, select them and delete those instead.
Can I delete a page without deleting the content on it?
No. In Word on Mac, pages are created by content — there is no separate page object to delete. If you want to keep the content but move it to a different page, cut the content (Command+X), delete the page break or extra space, and paste it (Command+V) where you want it to appear.
What is the difference between a page break and a section break?
A page break forces a new page but keeps the same formatting. A section break creates a new page and allows different formatting, headers, footers, or margins in each section. Both appear as invisible characters when you turn on the paragraph mark view. Delete them the same way — click on them and press Delete.
How do I delete multiple pages at once?
Select all the content on the pages you want to delete by clicking at the start of the first page, holding Shift, and clicking at the end of the last page. Then press Delete. If the pages are separated by page breaks, you can use Find & Replace to remove all page breaks at once (Command+H, find ^m, replace with nothing, Replace All).
Why does Word create a blank page when I paste content?
Pasted content sometimes brings formatting with it, including page breaks or section breaks. After pasting, check the paragraph mark view to see whether a page break was pasted along with the text. If so, delete the page break. You can also use Paste Special (Command+Control+V) and choose "Unformatted Text" to paste without any formatting or breaks.